What Are You Thinking About?
by oiseaus
Summary: "She's always cold now. Works with pale hands, trembling fingers that earn her an "Are you alright?" almost daily. Doesn't know whether it's to do with an especially cool early November, or the other thing." Post 4.3 AU. (Trying to practice writing again, so the chapters may shift in style as the story progresses).
1. Chapter 1

Introduction: (A Sensible Mind)

She's always cold now. Works with pale hands, trembling fingers that earn her an "Are you alright?" almost daily. Doesn't know whether it's to do with an especially cool early November, or the other thing.

The other thing's left a small scar on her hip. She hadn't noticed it until two days ago, a little half-moon; and maybe that's why she's moved back into the big house. That's what she tells herself, anyway, when she bathes at night; scrubbing at it harshly with movements that make the candle's flame flicker. Making it worse, really. That tiny scar that she knows in her sensible mind is only visible under careful inspection.

The same sensible mind knows, of course, the truth of why she's moved back. Packed what she absolutely needed on a rainy Thursday and arranged it in a drawer across from the small bed in the small room. Brisk, no-nonsense movements she'd learned as a girl. The small bed she's known for longer than her married one.

The other thing. There hadn't even been a bed.

Anna, the sensible girl with a heart that loved and cherished with as much strength as a spring sunrise; shining bravely even in a cold, dewy morning. As a girl she'd worn her hair in a braid down her back and kept her spirit in check. Grown to be a gentle, patient young woman who looks delicate at times. She'd been the girl who wasn't afraid of mice in the servants' hall at night. Who'd picked them up in her hand with a giggle at the footman's look of surprise and tiptoe out into the kitchen courtyard to set the little thing free. Is now the young woman who isn't afraid to defend her point of view, to defend others, to carry a dead man in the silence of a nighttime corridor.

And for the first time in her life Anna finds herself afraid. More fear in that sensible mind than there'd been in wartime, even. It sounds silly when she thinks of it that way. Silly like it's something she can easily rid herself of if she wanted to.

Rid herself of that scrape on the window sill as she'd fallen, the fall that'd left her that scar. A half-moon like the curve of a fingernail planted on her hip. A reminder of that ill-fated night. Of that headache.

Anna's always cold now, and restless like those nights before she'd had arms around her to hold her still. She's reacquainting herself with numb toes and lonely mornings with the sky out her window looking darker and darker as autumn turns to winter. She misses the rose-hued dawns, the sun rising with them on the morning walk from the cottage to the abbey. Them. She and her husband.

Anna hears the ringing bell and sits up in bed, ignores her numb toes and trembling hands as she gets out of bed, tries to not think of Mr. Bates waking at the same time, alone in the cottage. As she dresses she brushes her index finger over the scar and dwells for a moment on why she's here and not there. Squares her shoulders and continues dressing.

She's not going to think about it. Not today. "Are you alright?" they'll ask. And she'll nod and carry on living. The other thing she'll house on a shelf in the back of that sensible mind.

But Mr. Bates can see right through her. She's as transparent as a glass of water in his eyes. A book he can open and read with ease.

What Anna doesn't know is that these days to him she's not easy to read. A book in a foreign language. Bits and pieces he can make out, but the rest is a secret. Bates wants to know, once and for all, what those stares out frosted windows mean. What's making her shiver besides a black dress that's too thin. For the moment all he can content himself to do is watch her exist, wonder about the unreadable look in her clear blue eyes.

How lovely, to exist at the same time.

* * *

A/N: So, I hope this came across as readable. It might be a little "out there"...Let me know if I should continue. I actually think it could stand alone but at the same time I feel like it needs a follow-up. And I know the post-rape storyline has been done again and again, but why not give it my own take! Boom.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter I: Resurfacing

In reality, there's silence between them. Anna knows this, but every time he asks her what's wrong and she dodges the truth she hears her own heart pounding. Wonders if he can hear it, too. Her mind is telling her _No_ , but her heart is aching for her to let that secret out. It's like a heavy suitcase she needs help carrying.

Of course, she's wearing the truth on her face. Almost faded now, but there's still her mouth; that trace of a slice on her bottom lip, but it's healing. It'll be gone soon enough, along with the rest, she hopes. Anna's still waiting for a confirmation that there'll be no child. She remembers her own words, that she'd kill herself. She already wakes up wanting to, anyway.

Even Lady Mary had asked after her, wanted to know if anything was the matter. But there's no room for half-truths or full lies. There never had been, really. Not with those who know her best, nor with anyone else for as long as she's lived.

* * *

Bates has been watching his wife heal. Her young face is resurfacing from beneath its curtain of bruises, and all he can see is a small mark on her lip. Realizes he hasn't kissed her in a full two weeks, going on three now. But he'll give her the time she's applied for. Sleep in a bed half-empty, half cold for as long as it takes.

"Anna?" She hates the sound of her own name. It's her husband, sitting, oddly, across from her at the table for dinner. This time it'd been his choice, letting her sit alone. Or avoiding her. "Are you going to eat?"

Anna draws herself up and picks up her fork, nods once. Tonight it's chicken, a green bean salad, and beets. A loaf of baguette that crunches delightfully when Carson saws the first slice. Thankfully, she's hungry, and takes a bit of everything. Bates seems pleased when their eyes meet briefly. Glad she'd let herself be visible.

In the break between dinner and them being called to tend to Lady Mary and the Earl, Bates meets his wife as she tries to slip out of sight. Part of her wants always to be alone, with all her thoughts, all of her feelings untouched and invisible within her. It's safer. Easier, in a sense. Because without being seen or heard, nothing and no one can hurt her; because they don't know what can.

"Anna, you won't even look at me," he says. "Just…tell me what I've done. Or what I can do?"

She looks at him for an instant, then her eyes find the floor again. "No, you've done nothing. It's alright."

He finds himself exasperated, but tries not to show it. She startles easily these days. "It's anything but alright. Anna, you won't look at anyone!" A maid walks by them, breaks the moment. "You're not yourself."

And there it is. The truth everyone has been seeing, she realizes. Anna feels the swell of tears in her throat, but swallows it down. "I'm just tired, that's all. Really." Her face relaxes, and she forces herself to look at him. To reassure him. It works.

Bates holds her eyes for a moment. He's missed the blue of them. "And…you'll move back into the cottage? Now Ms. Baxter's here?"

A moment of pure nausea, then: "Just as soon as I can." Those tears threaten insistently behind her eyes at the gentle smile he gives her. She then looks up as Lady Mary's bell rings. "I'd best be off," Anna says by way of goodbye, rushes off before he can even respond.

Bates waits for the Earl to ring, puzzles over her vague answer. She _can_ move back whenever she wants. He knows this, and tries not to read too much into why she's stayed on. Maybe Lady Mary had asked her. Or maybe it's what Anna wants. To be away from him.

" _To have and to hold,_ " echoes in his brain. " _Til death do us part._ "

* * *

Anna looks out her high window. There's frost at the edges. She's been doing this a lot lately. And as she looks out that window, her gaze pushing through the cold glass, she thinks maybe she's looking for something. Maybe she's hoping to find something out there in the vast emptiness of the abbey's lawn. A tree, perhaps. A tree with an answer as to what she should do. But those leaves have fallen, and she thinks maybe the answers been swept away with them.

It's dark, and although the thought frightens her, like many things do these days, Anna misses her bed in the cottage. Misses the warmth of her husband behind her. Sometimes, rarely, and only when she had a lot on her mind, she would turn in the middle of the night. And sometimes, rarely, she'd see her husband's back. His nightshirt stretched across it, and she'd smile at the wrinkles she'd forgotten to smooth out along with his shirts for work.

Now she sighs to herself. Thinks of him, of that bed. There's something so vulnerable, so terrifying, so sacred in the sight of another's back, warm and curled away from you in sleep. And as she turns away from the window, Anna hears the whistle of a cold winter wind. She turns in the bed, curls her knees to her chest, makes herself as small as a child.

The sound of her scream she'd heard in that breeze.

* * *

 **A/N: Hope you liked it! The story will move along a bit in further chapters, don't worry. Thank you for all the help I received in writing this chapter. Please review or send any thoughts by PM to me. See you next Friday!**


	3. Chapter 3

ATTN: This chapter takes place _after_ Bates learns about what happened to Anna (picking up in the boot room scene). I tried to rewrite it to make it flow more nicely, but I was having a hard time, so I just left it at this. Hope you like it!

Chapter II: Warm Again

He knows about the attack, and Anna suddenly feels warm again. A flash of hot, then warmth seeping into her cheeks and sternum and she stands there, pressed against him in a healing embrace. This is the lightning that fractures the storm, this truth between them now. _I know_ , he'd said. Her lip had trembled.

His hand strokes over her hair, and Anna closes her eyes. It feels strange to be held like this, foreign. A hand holding her up, holding her close. Another cupped around her head. Anna turns her head so that her brow is against his chest and her eyes -though closed- face the ground. Bravely places a kiss on his chest where her tears have moistened his shirt. A gentle christening.

"I'm coming home," Anna says, looking up and finding his eyes, her voice soft. "Tomorrow," she promises.

Bates brushes a thumb over her cheek bone tenderly, and Anna fights against the urge to back away. But she'd know the feel of his hand before all others, and any fear soon quiets itself. He smiles. "I'm glad."

That evening Anna informs Mrs. Hughes that she'll be moving back to the cottage, and feels a similar warmth rise within her at the smile that brightens the older woman's face. A smile full of pride, she realizes later. And she lets herself feel a handful of that pride. Lets it lighten the weight on her chest, settle gently in her arms like wings.

Yet when she blows out the lamp and pulls the sheets up over her that night Anna finds herself troubled by the shadows she's been running from. She imagines tomorrow, imagines packing her things again and walking back to the cottage. Silhouettes chasing her footsteps. _Run away, run away!_ she thinks. And then Anna dreams. Dreams of it. Awakens to a new day. _Run away, run away!_

* * *

Sitting beside his wife at the breakfast table with the other servants the next morning, Bates notices how her face has healed. Incredibly, no trace that she'd ever been hurt. Porcelain, and warmer than it had been in the past weeks. She looks alive. Anna stores pain inside, Bates reminds himself. Thinks of the time she'd shut her finger in the front door, how it had emerged red and raw, but she hadn't made a peep. He'd watched as the days passed and her thin index finger shifted from swollen to bruised. Watched her wince as she picked up her fork at the table, the movement forcing her to bend the digit.

They work through the day, avoiding each other unconsciously. They're both frightened, and as Anna finishes dressing Lady Mary for bed she feels a familiar nausea rise within her, only this time it's not merely the thought of moving back to the cottage. It's the reality, a half hour away she'll be picking up her packed bag and walking home with him. They haven't discussed it really, not since she told him she was returning. Her stomach is churning. She wonders if he feels the same.

Later, they put on their coats, bracing themselves for the cold. Anna steals a glance at his breath as they walk side by side out the door. Like smoke it swirls in the night air. Bates sighs, unsure of how to break the silence between them. Neither of them know quite what to do, and so they walk side by side along the path, each lost in thought. And as the cottage comes into view in the distance, Bates tentatively searches for her hand which, surprisingly, Anna takes. He thinks of how they don't say enough to each other. He loves her, but he is frightened of telling her, scared of driving her away. She seems to shy away from affection these days. Neither is wearing a costumes, but they are both disguised by the things they do not say aloud.

Holding hands, he thinks, is way of saying nothing together.

* * *

"Would you like some tea?" Bates asks, awkwardly helping her with her coat. Anna shakes her head. She's trying to push the idea of going to bed out of her mind. Wishes she could close off her mind to these torturing thoughts.

"I'll just go to bed," she says softly. "I'm tired, it's been a long day." She takes off her gloves and immediately turns to the stairs, mounting them quickly and finding their bedroom, the door ajar. She wants to undress before he can see her, and begins ridding herself of her clothes, unlacing her corset. Before he can even reach the top of the staircase she's down to her underthings and climbing into bed, turned away from him, her knees pulled to her chest. Protecting herself. Closing herself off.

Bates undresses himself, gets into bed beside her and picks up his book, opening it to where he'd left off the night before. After a few pages he looks over at her, at her honeyed hair spilling down her back and onto the sheets. Oh, how he'd missed it. He closes the book, places it back on the nightstand and touches her shoulder.

Anna flinches. "Don't!" she cries, just as she'd done before. Then looks over her shoulder and sighs, taking in his confused expression. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I just—"

"It's alright, don't apologize," Bates withdraws his hand immediately, internally chastising himself. "I wasn't thinking. I'm sorry."

Anna turns over again, away from him. She keeps her eyes open. Frowning, deep in thought, she finally speaks. "I dream of it sometimes."

He is silent. _I didn_ _'_ _t hear your cries for help._

Anna is silent. _No one heard me._

After a time, they sleep. And tonight her sleep is dreamless, their room safe from shadows.

* * *

A/N: So, we jumped ahead a little! Still setting the scene, but things will start happening and breaking away from canon in the next chapter. Let me know if my writing is too "all over the place", because sometimes I feel like it only makes sense to me. Or any other thoughts you may have! I've gotten some nice feedback on the first two chapters I've published, and I hope you'll stick with me through this. I think it's been done before, but I'd like to give it my own take. Thank you for all the help I've received along the way. Have a nice weekend / week!


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter III: Something to Hold Onto

She's up before him the next morning, waking just as the sun makes an appearance on the horizon line -shy and rosy. After pulling all the curtains back, dressing, and brewing a pot of tea, Anna sits on the staircase. Her knees drawn up to her chest with her chin resting atop them; her skirts are pulled up to her ankles, and stockinged feet peep out from under the dark fabric. She feels safe here. No words, no voices. Here in this lion quiet of a Monday dawn cool Autumn licks at the front door. Her hands are warm as they cradle a cup of tea.

"Anna?" His wife has never looked smaller, Bates thinks. Dressed for the day -save her shoes-, her hair pulled to one side of her neck, wavy as falling water.

She jumps like a cat, spills her tea, and stands up immediately. "I wanted to let you sleep," she says. "I didn't mean to wake you."

Bates chuckles and rubs his eyes. "You didn't wake me, it's the damn neighbor's dog again," he smiles at her as she frets over the spilled tea. "Anyway, it's six o'clock."

Anna looks up. "We should be walking up soon," she says, "I need to fix my hair."

They make good enough time, efficiently dressing and making the bed before heading downstairs. Bates watches out of the corner of his eye as his wife does something magical in front of the hallway mirror with a twist of her wrist and some help from her fingers, her hair emerging perfectly coifed (although she lingers over one or two stray hairs by her neck, light as milk).

"What?" Anna asks, her expression confused. "What is it?"

He chuckles again and shakes his head, plucking her coat from the peg by the door and helping her into it. "Nothing," he assures. "It's good to have you home."

Anna's eyes linger on his a moment before she ducks to hide a smile, pinning her hat and leaning down to buckle her shoes.

* * *

Later, in the boot room with a collection of heels that are barely in need of polishing, Anna works -a shoe on her left hand, a brush in her right, rubbing until the shoe is cleaner than it looked before it had been worn. She has to have something in her hands, something to hold onto or she'll lose herself again.

Maybe that was life -grappling with something, trying to find purchase anywhere to avoid falling into the shadows.

The faithful sound of a cane brushing against the floor tells Anna that her husband is near, and she puts the shoe down on the table, turning her head as he walks into the room. Slowly, as if to not startle her.

"I won't go," he says, looking down at her intensely.

Anna lifts her brows slightly, and her hands feel cold and empty without the shoe and brush to clutch onto. "I see," she says quietly. "So, you'll leave His Lordship in the lurch, and probably lose your job. And all this to help me." It seems even more ridiculous when spoken aloud. She takes his arm for an instant, warm under her palm. "Go home and pack," she instructs, and the humble earnestness in his eyes makes her stomach flip. Swiftly descending panic at his imminent departure.

She turns and walks out of the room, the shoes abandoned, and closes the door before he can see her lean against the wall for support. A hand to her mouth to shelter the sounds of her tears, another to quickly wipe at her eyes as the steps of one of the housemaids carry down to her.

* * *

"Let's move on," Lady Mary says with a smirk as Anna helps her dress for bed. They've been talking of the string of handsome, dark-haired suitors that have been visiting for the past few days. _I'm not aloof, am I?_

Anna walks back to the foot of the bed, holding black dinner gloves. "I heard you persuaded His Lordship to let Mr. Bates stay here," she says, her voice nearly trembling with gratitude. "and I'm so very grateful."

Lady Mary looks down, caught. "Then you know Mrs. Hughes asked me to intervene. And told me why."

"Yes," Anna says, still holding the gloves, unwilling to put them down just yet. "So she said."

"We still can't find out who he was?" Lady Mary presses, her voice gentle, like a sister. No walls between them tonight.

Anna shakes her head, occupying herself with Lady Mary's clothes laid out on the bed, silk soft as a child's cheek. "No," Anna says, her voice fractured, unsteady. "He was a stranger, a...I don't know. A robber." The room is washed with a familiar glow, a sudden sanctuary, and yet she can't wait to leave. It's still too fresh. "Afterwards, he just ran off." The lies taste like copper coins on her tongue as they come out, one after the other, petty change.

Lady Mary wants to help, but the more she talks about it the more Anna wants to burst into tears. It seems, now, that everyone knows, even if it's only a precious few. That she's been peeled open like a sour lime, a section for everyone to purse their lips at. "Milady," she says. "I don't mind your knowing. In fact, I'm glad in a way. That there's honesty between us again," (no copper coins now) "But I can't talk about it. Not even to you."

Minutes later, Anna leaves, the hallway like a tunnel in front of her. All these closed doors. All these paintings on the walls, men and women who used to exist. Were they good people? she wonders. All these immaculate carpets, swirls and patterns no one pays attention to. Her neck feels sweaty, her brow feverish. What a world to live in. So many places to hide and yet they choose to be seen, and lavishly so.

* * *

There is a tiny fray on the brim of one of Lady Mary's summer hats, naked to the untrained eye. But it doesn't escape Anna, whose hands are constantly searching for the next thing to clasp in their palms. Something to do. She scans her hands quickly to check their cleanliness, then picks up the hat, heading down to the sewing room for a needle and thread. It is mid-afternoon, and sorting through Lady Mary's clothing had seemed like a useful occupation of idle time.

She travels three staircases in all to reach the servants hall from Lady Mary's bedroom, then turns to walk to the sewing room. Two housemaids are giggling, sharing some secret, and they straighten up and school their expressions when Anna appears.

When had the world changed? It seems only yesterday she had been a young, blushing housemaid herself. Sensible, but naïve in the ways of life. Her somber demeanor these past weeks along with her dark dress do not meld well together to create the image of a friendly person. These young maids see her as an authority figure, now. She is no longer a girl.

* * *

None of her threads match the brim of Lady Mary's hat, a shade of white with the faintest hint of blue. Miss Baxter might have some, though, so Anna goes to find her in the servants dining room. It seems another guest has arrived -there is an air of excitement that feels foreign for a Monday morning.

When she enters the dining room, there he is. Green. The malicious shadow from her nightmares.

Anna stands stuck in the stricture of no movement, her teeth glued to each other, a rush of cold from her fingertips to her scalp. "Miss Baxter, I wondered if you could-?" she says, looking away from the monster before her and into the kind eyes of the woman in front of her. She feels his eyes on her still. His gaze is heavy like an illness.

"If I could what?" Miss Baxter prompts, unfolding a napkin as tea begins at the table.

Anna recovers admirably. "If you could let me have some white thread? I seem to have run out." She scans the room. Mr. Bates across from Green. Fear rises in her chest, quick and sharp as a slap.

"Of course," Miss Baxter says with a smile.

She leaves the room before another word can be said. Walking away, going anywhere, a butterfly in a specimen jar.

* * *

Anna opens the small back door, finding safety outside. It is colder than she had expected.

A desperate gulp of Autumn air, as if she'd been running.

It was there, always there, the thing no one wanted to talk about, the thing no one wanted to remember. Every morning, every night. But that terrible night now seems almost like another universe, her dark world kept hidden from all others. Her battlefield. In the absence of our enemies we become less careful, and although she has healed physically, the memory of that night in that other, dark world smarts like a raw, open wound.

The sudden overlap of good and evil in her life makes Anna's head ache, and she has to sit down on a crate of empty glass milk bottles to stop the world from tilting haphazardly on its fixed axis. The bottles clatter like glass bones.

Behind her, the door opens and Mrs. Hughes walks to her side, puts a careful hand on her shoulder. "No one knew he was coming," she says after a moment.

"No," Anna says, her vision stabilizing under the older woman's touch. She looks up. "How long is he staying?"

Mrs. Hughes' eyes betray her own fear and uncertainty. "That I can't say, but I will find out. What do you need me to do?" The weight of kindness in the palm on her shoulder makes Anna want to cry.

"What can anyone do?" Anna says, standing again on unsteady legs. The hand drops away. "I can't get away from it, Mrs. Hughes." And, even quieter, tears in her throat, "I can't get away from him. Not ever."

When she was a little girl she'd worn funeral black to a cousin's funeral. A cold day like today, bare trees. The soil had been damp from rain as it crumbled and hit the top of the coffin once it had been lowered down. It is not in her nature to wish harm on others, but in this instant Anna sees death as the only possible escape. Bury him away. A wicked thought.

What was that they said about anger making you see red? Could the same be said for revenge, then?

"One day, one day it will be all right," Mrs. Hughes says, although her tone, while full of conviction, also carries a heavy shade of daring hope.

Anna looks at Mrs. Hughes for a moment, the woman means well. She then glances up at the sky, white and covered with clouds. In the distance, low, the sky is murky grey, clouds fragile as a bruise with the promise of a coming storm.

* * *

She can almost taste the tension in the air during the servants' dinner, thick like oil. Is it her imagination or is Mr. Bates' grip on his fork tighter than usual? Jimmy is saying something about valets and jackets but all Anna can hear is the broken-rhythmed tinkling of utensils on plates. There is a tenth circle of hell -sitting still and stuck to a chair, drenched in fear, while those around you lived untroubled lives, warm and chatty. Talk of new hairstyles. Complaints of mud in jackets.

What she wouldn't give to trade all this inside her head for a thousand muddy dresses.

Through the walls there is a grumble, the storm cloud from that afternoon finally breaking above them.

Life is grappling with something, holding on tightly while all around you explodes in anarchy and destruction.

* * *

A/N: Oh, MAN! So, I sort of abandoned this piece after I published it in March, but I've decided to pick it up again and try to finish it. I like when I can finish something, and hopefully I'll do better at that this time (*cough cough* _Yours Forever_ ). So, I found this incomplete Pages document that I'd started in March and I tried to piece some things together and make this chapter somewhat coherent. I'm really not pleased with the result. I must have watched this episode five times trying to find a way to escape into my intended plot, but it just ended up being some flowery filler (for the most part), relying heavily on episode dialogue. Let me know what you think, though! It's always nice to hear your thoughts and suggestions. I'll try to get another chapter up soon. I think I know where I'm going from here...

Also, I changed the title and rating of this fic from "Les jours tristes" (which sounded completely contrived) to "What Are You Thinking About?" (which I also sort of dislike, but I'm workin' with it).


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